


screamin' at myself (hey, i wanna get better)

by writing_addict



Series: The Miraculous Tales of Skathari and Mechanicat [4]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Miraculous Ladybug Fusion, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Winry Rockbell, Character Study, Edward Elric is Skathari, Epic Friendship, Epic Love, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Identity Reveal, Introspection, Kwami & Miraculous Lore, Mental Breakdown, Past Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Sort Of, Supportive Plagg (Miraculous Ladybug), Winry Rockbell is Mechanicat, and also, back on this bullshit instead of working on cataclysms & catalysts, but y'all know they're feeling it, of That Edwin Scene, of a sort, or on the team building fic lol, so much introspection, y'all gonna have to wait a while longer for ling's chapter guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23562892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_addict/pseuds/writing_addict
Summary: “Your hands were meant to create. To give life.”In one world, these words shatter her guilt and give way to grief, and she breaks down in tears—broken, cleansing tears, because someone she loves is holding onto her, and she can’t bring herself to let go. Can’t make herself take that final step. Can’t make herself kill someone, can’t justify pulling the trigger, can’t even quite disagree with the reason the murderer is doing what he’s doing beyondyou killed my parents, and no matter how much or how little I understand, I can never forgive you for that.And he holds her, the warrior and the lifegiver, holding onto each other like their world will shake apart if they let go, and the world spins on.In this world, where Winry Rockbell has held chaos and sheer, unrelenting power in her hands, where the god that brought down Atlantis is resting in her pocket full of rage and grief to match her own, where she’s the bane of evil and the protector of good, she goes still at the words. Freezes, and stares into golden eyes, at a sad, serious face, and shelaughs.Or:Destruction herself is told her hands are meant to give life.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Winry Rockbell, Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Series: The Miraculous Tales of Skathari and Mechanicat [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1505633
Comments: 27
Kudos: 59





	screamin' at myself (hey, i wanna get better)

**Author's Note:**

> SO. UH. THIS IS A THING THAT HAPPENED. 
> 
> basically, i was brainstorming in quarantine (as we all must do), and i was thinking something along the lines of "hey, scar's alchemy originally was focused mainly on destruction, haha, how interesting, wouldn't it be cool if he faced off with mechanicat at some point?" which turned into "oh wow she does kinda face off against him as winry, a character study of her thoughts in that scene in this au would be fun to write" which turned into "awwwww that's so sweet, her hands were meant to give life--WAIT A GODDAMN SECOND". so now we have black cat!winry, the LITERAL EMBODIMENT OF DESTRUCTION, hearing from someone she loves and respects that her hands are supposed to give life, and...not taking it fantastically, let's just say that. enjoy!
> 
> note: this is not the identity reveal that is like...canon to this entire au "series", it's more of a "what-if" scenario, and the title is from "i wanna get better" by against the current and the ready set

The static of a moment stretches between them, Ed kneeling carefully in front of Winry and taking her hands as she mourns her inability to take that final step, to destroy the person that stole her parents away. That stole the lives of others, for a just revenge perhaps, but revenge all the same. The world’s eyes are on them as metal holds callouses and tiny scars that shouldn’t exist on the hands of a girl the world largely sees as of little consequence, a supporting character in this grand tale of heroism, and says, _“Your hands were meant to create. To give life.”_

In one world, these words shatter her guilt and give way to grief, and she breaks down in tears—broken, cleansing tears, because someone she loves is holding onto her, and she can’t bring herself to let go. Can’t make herself take that final step. Can’t make herself kill someone, can’t justify pulling the trigger, can’t even quite disagree with the reason the murderer is doing what he’s doing beyond _you killed my parents, and no matter how much or how little I understand, I can never forgive you for that._ And he holds her, the warrior and the lifegiver, holding onto each other like their world will shake apart if they let go, and the world spins on.

In this world, where Winry Rockbell has held chaos and sheer, unrelenting power in her hands, where the god that brought down Atlantis is resting in her pocket full of rage and grief to match her own, where she’s the bane of evil and the protector of good, she goes still at the words. Freezes, and stares into golden eyes, at a sad, serious face, and she _laughs._

The universe stops, and she keeps laughing, laughing, laughing, because she is _not_ Creation. She is not light, she is not luck, she is not good fortune and shining warmth and the sun that lights the world each morning. She is Destruction, pure and simple and untamed. She is Persephone and Kali and Pele and Morrigan and Nike, destruction and fire and death and victory.

(Once, she asked Plagg why she was the first female Chosen ever to wield Destruction, and he cackled like she’d uncovered the greatest secret of a lifetime. He’d pointed her toward the goddesses of old, to the strongest and the most dangerous, the sheer chaos and brilliant energy within them, the inherent _power_ within even the gentlest. _Because, kitten, you would be too powerful for the Guardians to ever control—but the Guardians ain’t around anymore, are they?)_

Her _partner—_ he is Life. Skathari is bright and beautiful and warm, _he_ is the sun, he is the gentle glow of a candle when you’re lost in the dark and the feeling of coming home when you’ve been wandering for so long that you don’t know where or who or what you are. He is good fortune, he is luck, he is light. He is the best part of her, and she knows he thinks more highly of her than she deserves. He’ll know, soon enough, what she’s done, and that love for her will come crashing down. It’s selfish, but that’s the only thing that stays her hand for a moment. A moment of wondering what it will take to make him see her as an enemy.

If he will ever, _ever_ see her as an enemy.

Winry hopes not, even as tears start to roll down her cheeks from the force of her hysterics, that unhinged laugh still bubbling out of her as she feels Ed’s hands start to shake. She already knows Ed’s trust and admiration are going to wither and die once he sees her, once she reveals what she truly is, that all his misplaced love and kindness is in vain because her hands were meant to _destroy._

Because Winry is Destruction, and perhaps worse than her being Destruction is the fact that she doesn’t hate it—is the fact that she feels powerful, in control, _free_ for the first time since Aunt Trisha died. Because she can unleash herself on the world in protection of the people she loves and the innocents who should never have to live lives like the Elric brothers’, who should ever have to lie awake wondering if their parents will survive the day or if someone in a uniform is going to show up on their doorstep and tell them that those precious people are gone forever, irrevocably. She can defend herself. She is _herself—_ not Fullmetal’s mechanic, not the Elrics’ friend, but Winry Rockbell.

And Winry Rockbell is Mechanicat, and Mechanicat has had _enough_ of letting this broken world break her.

“Oh, Ed,” she gasps when her laughter finally tapers off long enough for her to smile at him, bright and shattered into a million pieces. Sharp canines flash, and she sees shock and confusion and what looks like recognition on his face, but she pushes it away. No one knows her as Mechanicat—even if after this, the whole world will know she _is_ Mechanicat. The only person who really, really knows who she is, flaws and masks and smiles and all (the things she never lets Al see, never lets _Ed_ see, because they see her as home and as kindness and as forgiveness, and she cannot bear to let them know that she feels chained, that she can be all of those things and still vicious and merciless and powerful), is Skathari, and after this he will not be hers to love or miss or cry for anymore.

He will hate her, but she is too selfish to stop. “Ed,” she repeats, one hand gently cupping his cheek as she squeezes his other hand. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Something moves in her pocket—Plagg, quietly reassuring her, supporting her, always. No matter how much he tries to hide it, she knows he cares and she cares back just as fiercely. It’s her weakness. Her fatal flaw.

_“Claws out.”_

In a single, fluid motion, Mechanicat stands up, her staff in her hand as the world buzzes around her, destruction crackling in her palms like energy, like lightning, and she swears she hears the whispers of those goddesses of old urging her on. _Go. Go._

An old, vicious rage, deeper than her grief, starts to rise and swirls around her. _Scar thinks that he can wield Destruction? That he can get away with twisting our power to his agenda?_ Sharp teeth bare themselves in a terrifying, playful grin as she advances, tail lashing slowly as the cold, clear focus of the hunt rises over her. _We’ll show him exactly what it means to cross Death—_

_“Spots on.”_

For the second time that day, the world stops. Mechanicat stops, turns, freezes just as soft pink energy finishes sweeping up and over Ed, as golden eyes gaze at her from behind a black-spotted mask. The same golden eyes she’d see crease with laughter when they patrolled together, or light up with fiery excitement when they rushed into battle side-by-side, or glow like stars when they stood on the rooftop of the highest building in central hand-in-hand. Golden eyes filled with a love and warmth so deep it was humbling to her. Every. Single. Time.

Golden eyes that see _her_ , all of her. The parts she wants to keep hidden from Ed. The rage, the grief, the hunger for justice, her fury at her own helplessness in civilian form. Golden eyes that know her better than anyone else.

Golden eyes that are filling slowly with tears as her staff slips from numb fingers, clattering on the ground. Everyone who sees is silent, shocked in the rubble of that broken place. “You’ve been hurting so much,” he breathes, and a low, wounded noises pulls its way out of her chest as she stares at him. “I didn’t know.” He steps forward once—twice—oh-so tentatively, his hands reaching out so hesitantly. “Winry—kitty—”

A breath spans the distance between them—and then she lurches forward, and he throws himself at her, her arms coming up to hold him tight to her chest as she finally, finally breaks, sobbing into his shoulder. Fingers wind through her hair, rubbing at the spot at the base of her ears, his whole body shaking in her grip. “ _Don’t leave,”_ she finds herself begging through her sobs. _I know you see me as good, but you’re the best part of me, I can’t lose you, I can’t, I can’t._ “Please, _please,_ Skath, don’t—I know I can’t—”

The arms curled around her go stiff, fingers curling tightly into the armor around her back as the hand by her ears stays gentle. “If anyone takes you from me,” he hisses, his voice alight with the ancient promise of old gods and sheer power, “I will tear the world apart to bring you back.”

Creation, Mechanicat remembers distantly, is every bit as deadly as she is, if not more. The only difference is that the world doesn’t see it.

But they will. If they try to separate them, they will. They will see just how far Life and Death are willing to go to reach each other. Skathari and Mechanicat. Edward Elric and Winry Rockbell. “Don’t go stealing my thunder,” she rasps into his shoulder as his grip gentles again. “S’my thing, you know. Destroying.”

She feels him shrug. “Some things have to be razed before they can flourish.” _Creation and Destruction._ One cannot exist without the other.

“Preferably not the entire world.”

The grin she sees spread across his face is all Edward Elric, one-hundred-percent, and yet ancient and unforgiving. “We can make a new one.”

It sounds like a promise, like _don’t forget,_ and she curls her fingers around his and kisses them gently.

_Together._

**Author's Note:**

> soooo what d'you think? i hope it was as interesting to read as it was to write! leave a comment and/or a kudos if you enjoyed it, and i'll see you next time--hopefully with a chapter of "we are the heroes" next, 'cause i know y'all have been waiting a while. stay safe <3 <3 <3
> 
> also, if any of you have ever heard of six the musical, you're gonna like the next one-shot i have planned (different au--a six au, ofc)...and if you haven't heard of six, GO LISTEN TO IT. seriously, it's fantastic.


End file.
